Are you suffering from selfie wrist?

Your next selfie could be your most painful one, research suggests. People are being warned about ‘selfie wrist’ caused by using the phone’s camera to take a photo of themselves. Selfie wrist is a form of carpal tunnel syndrome. People who experience selfie wrist may feel a tingling or sharp pain, which comes from flexing your wrist inward or holding your phone too long without moving.

Among the doctors seeing this drawback more and more is Dr Levi Harrison, who says that he has been seeing a lot of patients with the condition, within which the nerves become inflamed and a patient experiences numbness, tingling or sharp pains in their hand, wrist or arms. According to him, this condition could be a variety of carpal tunnel syndrome, which happens once the median nerve becomes squeezed or ironed at the wrist. Factors like injuries to the wrist joint, an overactive pituitary gland, an inactive ductless gland, autoimmune disorder, and work stress to the wrist joint are common causes of carpal tunnel syndrome. As such, the ‘overworking’ of the wrist joint to take the selfies is also another explanation for this condition. In fact, data shows that a minimum of 62 per cent of people have taken a minimum of one selfie of themselves.


According to research, there have been several popular incidents in recent years in which doctors have diagnosed selfie wrist. The incidents included a selfie-taker jumping on a trampoline, walking on rocks or just not paying attention and ending up breaking their wrist from falling or colliding with other objects. A 2018 study discovered that between October 2011 and November 2017, there had been 259 deaths associated with taking a selfie, with the most concentrated deaths coming from India, Russia, USA and Pakistan.

As such, researchers believe that it’s necessary to teach the general public on the hidden hazards that this widespread problem. “It is very important to teach society concerning the risks related to taking numerous selfies so as to reduce both major and minor trauma related to the new trend,” researchers wrote.